How to really show (and copy) the EXIF original date for "Date taken" of a photo?

[tobwen]

I have a photo which was originally taken at lets say 03.03.2026 at 17:14 with a smartphone.

A few days later I copied the photo to my Windows system and applied some changes with a photo/image editor

The photo file got a new creation + last modified date.

Luckily the EXIF Meta-data header contains still the original Date when the photo was taken.
I can peek into the EXIF header with well known tools like exiftool or QuickImageComment.
In EXIF header section "photo" I can see the EXIF header fields "DateTimeDigitzed" and "DateTimeOriginal" which contain the original creation time (which is equal here).

Now I want to show the DatetimeOriginal in a separate column in XYplorer.
I though the XYP column "Date Taken" would do it. But it is always empty.

How can I tell XYplorer to retrieve the date for column "Date Taken" from the EXIF header fields DateTimeOriginal?
....or invent a new column for this task?

[highend]

The special property "Date Taken" (as a column) is empty?
Not here...

A cc would look like this:

2026-04-05_10-21-07.png

Code: Select all

Snip: CustomColumn 1
  XYplorer 27.20.1200, 05.04.2026 10:20:09
Action
  ConfigureColumn
Caption
  DateTimeOriginal
Type
  3
Definition
  return get("exif", "0x9003", <cc_item>);
Format
  0
Trigger
  0
Item Type
  0
Item Filter
  {:Image}

[tobwen]

@highend:

Thank you for your comment:

I setup the column just as you described

After adding the column it is still empty.
See attached snapshot

Moreover:
Surprisingly the column vanishes when I switch to another folder and go back. How do I make the new column permanent?

Furthermore I attached a sample *.jpg

DTO column empty.png

Test DateTimeOriginal.zip

[highend]

Maybe because the EXIFIFD for DateTimeOriginal returns 21 bytes instead of 20 as for all my images and that confuses XY? Don't know, Don needs to say something about this.

You could use:
https://www.exiv2.org/download.html

Code: Select all

    $exiv   = "<xydrive>\Tools\@CLI Tools\exiv2\exiv2.exe";
    $result = runret("""$exiv"" -pv -q -g Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal ""<cc_item>""");
    $date   = regexmatches($result, "[0-9: ]{19}$");
    $time   = gettoken($date, 2, " ");
    return replace(gettoken($date, 1, " "), ":", "-") . " " . $time;

but I can't recommend this for folders with many files. You'd better tag them in that case...

Surprisingly the column vanishes when I switch to another folder and go back. How do I make the new column permanent?

A default folder view (without this column) or a specific one for that folder / root is in place?

[jupe]

Check this dialog to see if it is displayed under an alternate field: File | Metadata, also because there are 2 Date Taken columns in XY, a Shell Property and a Special Property, and they are not always the same.

edit: I didn't notice you uploaded a sample when I posted that, yeah it looks like something is non standard in the way Paint Shop Pro saves the date, or exif data in general, or do photos straight from your phone also not show the date?, anyway if you re-write just the exif data it is corrected though, eg:

2026-05-18_101012.png

[tobwen]

edit: I didn't notice you uploaded a sample when I posted that, yeah it looks like something is non standard in the way Paint Shop Pro saves the date, or exif data in general, or do photos straight from your phone also not show the date?, anyway if you re-write just the exif data it is corrected though, eg:

Very interesting.
PSP is the culprit
Original photos from Samsung S23 Smartphone are shown correctly in XYP column.

Does "21" mean 21 bytes or 21 bits or format spec "21" or 21st position of EXIF enumeration fields or .....?

How did you changed the value from 21 back to 20?

[highend]

Does "21" mean 21 bytes or 21 bits or format spec "21" or 21st position of EXIF enumeration fields or .....?

EXIFIFD for DateTimeOriginal returns 21 bytes instead of 20

exiftool -G1 -v3 "your sample file"

Code: Select all

  | | 5)  DateTimeOriginal = 2022:09:11 13:53:10
  | |     - Tag 0x9003 (21 bytes, string[21]):
  | |         0242: 32 30 32 32 3a 30 39 3a 31 31 20 31 33 3a 35 33 [2022:09:11 13:53]
  | |         0252: 3a 31 30 00 00                                  [:10..]

And a file for that return get("exif", "0x9003", <cc_item>); works looks like:

Code: Select all

  | | 3)  DateTimeOriginal = 2007:07:20 19:57:19
  | |     - Tag 0x9003 (20 bytes, string[20]):
  | |         12dc: 32 30 30 37 3a 30 37 3a 32 30 20 31 39 3a 35 37 [2007:07:20 19:57]
  | |         12ec: 3a 31 39 00                                     [:19.]

How did you changed the value from 21 back to 20?

By writing it again with e.g. exiftool?

[tobwen]

Thank you